Talk:ReadGujrati.Com’s Mrugesh Shah
Mrugesh Shah is 28 years old Gujarati young man who finished his education of bachelor in computer applications and started last year a Gujarati literature website www.readgujarati.com. Mrugesh spends daily two to three hours to update and maintain this website single handedly. He has passion for Gujarati literature, but can this passion become a profession too eventually? DeshGujarat.com in exclusive interview with Mrugesh in his residence at Baroda asks this and
more( Episode: 21 Minutes 48 Seconds)
How ReadGujarati was conceived first?
Mrugesh says he was a writer by heart but when he searched for a platform where he could start writing, there was none. Established publications were giving a node only to established writers. Mrugesh then decided to come with his own platform on web and started ReadGujarati.Com to write for his pleasure and to give other emerging writers a platform too.
When did he start ReadGujarati ?
Mrugesh started ReadGujarati.com from his drawing room based computer desk and few Gujarati books that he used to own. He is still doing the same.
How did he start ReadGujarati ?
Mrugesh used to take one chapter from the Gujarati authors’ books. One chapter from one book, so that copyright problem may not arise but on the other hand author and book can be benefited and it’s sale can be boosted. Mrugesh already was Bachelor of Computer Application so there was no problem about technical end. He used Word press Unicode for ReadGujarati.Com.
How was the initial response?
Mrugesh says initial response was obviously poor. Very few friends were reading it.
How did audience grow?
Audience grew due to word of mouth, search engine ranking and cross publicity given to him by magazines and newspapers.
What are the feedbacks from readers?
Mrugesh says some of the feedbacks are amazing. One was the feedback fromU.S by husband and wife. Husband said he gifted this website to her wife who liked reading Gujarati but did not know about Gujarati reading site on the net. One feedback was from Russia recently where a person told in email that he never could imagine there in Russia that he could read Gujarati literature. Mrugesh says there are responses from even Kongo like small countries (DeshGujarat has same experience).
How frequently ReadGujarati is updated?
Mrugesh says ReadGujarati.Com is updated daily in the morning with two new items. Quotations are programmed in a manner that it updates automatically daily.
What types of content Mrugesh prefers for ReadGujarati?
Mrugesh says he is not in a favor of putting sensational material on his site which can provoke someone or can make reader’s nature bit more aggressive. He is in a favor of publishing the stuff which can make a reader feeling like he is sitting under cool neem tree.
What is powerful? Print or Net?
Mrugesh says net media is not an alternative of print media. Print is powerful and will be there. Net is optional and can cater in a best way where print is absent.
What can be a revenue model?
Mrugesh shah runs his website on his own. He types articles himself, He edit them, choose them, publish them, make a computer programming for his site, he bears all server expenses on his own. There is no revenue so far except comments and feedbacks he earns. Mrugesh says that there is no plan to go to paid option for readers in future. He says he can make a book out of contributing writers and poets submission to his site and may sell it and earn for ReadGujarati.Com project. It should be noted that this same model is already implemented by poetry sites from U.S. and U.K.
November 17th, 2006 at 3:53 am
unicode is good but in gujarati , words are sometime broken, and not properly readable. Site like Mrugesh’s site are not worth enjoyable thus.
November 17th, 2006 at 8:18 am
This site readgujarati gives virus, it is badly affected, I experienced it.
November 17th, 2006 at 11:08 am
Every other site is free and not generating income, whats new in readgujarati if it runs without income ? interview is very nice but nothing new in mrugesh’s work, or his site.
November 17th, 2006 at 11:11 am
and if someone like this man runs his site without getting income, then he is foolish. people honors people like dhirubhai ambani who works and earn income also to work more, not getting income and working on and on is foolishness. sorry if i have said something more but this is the fact
November 17th, 2006 at 8:42 pm
Agree to Rajendra’s point. Mrugesh makes ‘uthantari’ from books and put on his site. this is bloging and nothing special. This is common. there can be an episode about succesful website rather than such fuss.
November 18th, 2006 at 6:46 am
wow !! comments and episode at competetion here. readgujarati may be a fuss but episode is rockin
November 18th, 2006 at 8:36 pm
gujrati money minded rajendra i pitty you, who can not appriciate a only gujrati site without self interest.brevo mrugesh
November 18th, 2006 at 8:39 pm
keep it up dear mrugesh, dont give attention towards faltu ,bogus people like rajendra.
November 19th, 2006 at 3:58 am
સૌ પ્રથમ તો એ જણાવી દઉં કે હવે મોટા ભાગની સાઈટ યુનિકોર્ડ છે. યુનિકોર્ડ ને કલીયરલી વાંચવા માટે વિન્ડોઝમાં ફોન્ટ એપીરીયન્સ કલીયર ટાઈપ ના કરવા પડે છે. તેનાથી વધારે સારી અને સ્પષ્ટ રીતે વાંચી શકાય છે. વળી એની માતે વિન્ડોઝ એક્સ-પી ની જ જરૂર રહે છે તે ધ્યાન રાખવું જરૂરી છે.
ઉપર પરેન ભાઈની વાત પણ સાચી છે કે રીડગુજરાતી બે-દિવસ માટે વાયરસથી ઈફેકટેડ હતી, પરંતુ ઈન્ટરનેટનું માધ્યમ જ એવું છે કે ગમે એટલું સાચવીએ તો પણ બચી શકાતું નથી. મારુ અંગત કોમ્પ્યુટરને પણ તેનાથી એટલું જ નુકશાન થયેલું છે. પરંતુ ટેકનિકલ ક્ષેત્રમાં હું શું કરી શકું ? મેં સતત સર્વર એડમિનિસ્ટ્રેસ્ટર્સ નો સંપક્ર કરીને તેને કલીન કરાવ્યા છે. તેઓ એ પણ દિવસ રાત મહેનત કરીને એનું એન્ટીવાયરસ શોધી સાઈટ ને નોર્મલ કરવાનો પ્રયાસ કર્યો છે. એથી વધારે શું કરી શકાય ?
આવક ના થાય એવા કામો કરવાની એક અલગ મજા હોય છે. મને એવા કામો કરવાનો આનંદ આવે છે. એનો અર્થ એ નથી કે હું આવક ને ધિક્કારું છું. દુનિયાની દ્રષ્ટિએ હું મૂર્ખ છું, ચોપડીઓમાંથી ઊઠાંતરી કરનાર છું તો ભલે પણ આવનારા સમયમાં વ્યક્તિને આવક ની સાથે માનસિક શાંતિની એટલી જ જરૂર રહેશે. ત્યારે આપણું સત્વશીલ સાહિત્ય જ આપણી મદદે આવશે. વેબસાઈટનો કોઈ નવો કન્સેપટ છે જ નહિ. જે લોકોને વાંચન નથી મળતું એમને આપવાનો એક વિનમ્ર પ્રયાસ છે. જેમને વાંચન ગમે જ છે અને પુસ્તક પ્રાપ્ત છે એમણે સાઈટનો ઉપયોગ કરવાની જરૂર રહેતી નથી.
રીડગુજરાતી નકામું હોય, ટાઈમ પાસ હોય તો ભલે પણ આપણું ગુજરાતી સાહિત્ય તો અમર છે જ અને રહેશે. નામ રીડગુજરાતીનું ન થવું જોઈએ, ગુજરાતી સાહિત્યનું જ થવું જોઈએ.
આપના મુક્ત અભિપ્રાયોથી મને આનંદ થયો. આપે મારી વાતને સાંભળી એ પણ ઘણું છે અને એ માટે સૌનો આભારી છું. ધન્યવાદ.
November 19th, 2006 at 9:36 am
There should be more websites in Gujarati and related to Gujarat. We need 100s deshgujarat.com and readgujarati.com, gujaratsamachar.com and akila.com and gujarati people should spend their time at such websites. Also these websites should update themselves regulrly. gujarati people should worry about sucn websites’ existance and income.
November 19th, 2006 at 5:16 pm
સુંદર એપીસોડ જપનભાઇ , આભાર.
અભિનંદન મૃગેશભાઇ.
November 20th, 2006 at 5:55 am
Darek Karya na kendra sthane matra paisa j hoy e to khub j samanya vichaarsarni kehvaay. Mrugesh bhai e ethi upaar jai ne kaik vichaaru che ane kari dekhdu che.
Hardik Abhinanadan Mrugesh Bhai.
November 20th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
Dhirubhai Ambani, a respected and successful man, can not eat the money he makes to sustain him physically, nor can his money sustain his mind. I congratulate Mr Mrugesh Shah’s effort and JP for bringing his efforts to our attention. Some of our listeners need to re evaluate thier criteria for measuring success.
Thank you.
As a post script, I would encourage Mr. Mrugesh Shah and deshgujarat to consider soliciting non commericial sponsors. A sponsor can donate a small amount that will cover the cost of running the site for one month. Sites like hanumanchalisa.org are partly funded in this manner.
November 20th, 2006 at 6:01 pm
Abhinandan Mrugeshbhai,
With revenue model or without revenue model - anybody working for Gujarati language is commandable, period. Our language needs a good work before it joins the league of Sanskrit as an extinct language. Japanbhai - Mrugeshbhai , you guys are doing great work so that our language does not become like endangered species. Keep it up. Those who understand and appreciate the gravity of ths situation are always with you. Hats off to you and many others who are working on this.
one suggestion - make each page as a reference providing additional links for some factual material. For example, you could provide links to photographs of malls on your recent episode or a link to other resourcse from wikipedia for Mauratious episode or material links to Modi’s episodes. thanks.
November 23rd, 2006 at 8:31 pm
I am agree with Mr. RAJESH TILVA’s idea.
November 25th, 2006 at 5:07 pm
Very commendable effort. If money is an issue I suggest Sulekha ad network. Also there can be a Paypal donations link for private donations.
August 1st, 2007 at 8:09 am
અભિનંદન ..!.. હુ તો મૃગેશ ભાઇ ને એમ જ કહુ છુ કે રીડ ગુજરાતી એ સુપર માર્કેટ છે..જો કે હવે તો એમ કહી શકાય કે બિગ શોપીંગ મોલ છે. જે ગમતુ હોય તે સાહિત્ય નું જેટ્લું કરી શકાય એટ્લું અનલિમીટૅડ શોપીંગ કરી શકાય છે..!!..
September 18th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
jay swaminarayan
thanks lot 4 gujarati sahity
i dont know english well
so I cant sugess u
but thanking you
now
this work is very important
evey gujarati should try to devlop matrubhasha gujarati just like u
may good
bless you
jay swaminarayan
September 23rd, 2007 at 12:02 am
Recently when I was in U.S.to meet our childeren after long time I was informed by my friend Kanu Pomal that if I need the latest news in GUJARATI on Web I must visit ” akila.com “and as such I was trying hard to find the Web & today I came across this site.
I was delited to see your TO THE POINT Presentation.
Congratulations and Thanks a LOT….!
January 7th, 2008 at 8:36 am
I just read some initail comments made by rajendra and Nirav and i was feeling sorry for these guys..These guys simply are not aware of something called PASSION..Guys grow up…not everything on the face of this earth is done for the Money..And if u think that doin all these hardwork without getting a single rupee is foolish, then sorry to say guys, u are the biggest fol on the planet..just answer this simple question, “No one is paying u a damn penny for visiting any of these websites, but u do still visit them..WHY????”
It has been quite a few years since i have left India.And for a person like me who loves gujarati literature, it was not that easy to find such a good compilation on internet.I have been reading Mrugeshbhai’s website since the day he started it.Now a days i agree that there are many sites, but still the important thing is they are not updated every freakin day.And couple of corrction to what Nirav said..Nirav this is not a Blog spot..maintaining a blog and maintaining a site are two different things.Maintaining a protal like readgujarati.com takes great effort..And another correction, the word that u used “UTHANTARI” it is totally wrong. Uthantari is something where u copy someone’s work without acknowledging it..Mrugeshbhai is not doing that. The work he is doing is referred as “Digitizing the literature” where you are creating digital copies of the original work, without altering anything and giving 100% credit to the actual auther.
And few advice to you guys: If cant appriciate others work, please dont make any shitty comments on it. “Always it’s easy to say, difficult to do” and as it seems that u guys dont have any courage and rather any respect for Gujarati literatur, u’r not someones that should be known as Gujarati.
Mrugeshbhai, dont consider comments from ppl who dont understand Passion and love for something…You are doing very good work and plz carry it on…